


Envelopes and Snow-Globes

by nostalgia



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Swearing, dead doctor, mildly whouffaldi i suppose, mysterious mystery, only vaguely twissy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 19:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4492503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgia/pseuds/nostalgia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is dead. Clara sets out to save him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Envelopes and Snow-Globes

Clara wouldn't have opened the door in the first place if she'd known who'd be on her doorstep, but given subsequent events, it was probably a good thing that she did.

It was Missy who stood there, dressed in black with a serious expression on her face. Clara moved to slam the door in the woman's face, but Missy caught hold of the door and held it open with an unexpected strength.

“He's dead,” said Missy, before Clara could react.

Clara didn't have to ask who she meant. The devil didn't turn up to report any old tragedy, only the most personal. Like when Danny had died, and her mother, she felt everything stop. The background noises faded, her peripheral vision switched off, her own heart seemed to stop beating. She watched herself from a distance, as though she were an impartial observer. She saw herself cover her mouth with her hands, saw herself shaking her head. She saw rather than felt her eyes start to water of their own accord. 

_That's not possible_ , she wanted to say, but she had lost control of herself, could only stare at Missy, absolutely certain that the other woman wasn't lying or mistaken. 

“I went through his things,” said Missy, searching her pockets for something. “This was addressed to you.” She produced a slim brown envelope and held it out for Clara to take it. 

Clara fought her way back to herself and managed to take hold of the offering. She blinked away her tears and examined it. Something had been scribbled out on it, and underneath that thorough deletion she read her own name. The envelope was heavy and lop-sided, and when she opened it she found a folded piece of paper and what looked like an old Yale key on a thin silver chain.

Missy didn't seem surprised. “You're welcome to it,” she said, “I've always hated that old thing.”

Clara gripped the key in her hand so that it dug into her skin. “I can't... he wouldn't...”

“Well, he did.” Apparently Missy considered her task complete, because she let go of Clara's door and stepped away. She turned and started walking down the garden path, roses and violets lining her route.

“Wait!”

Missy stopped at the gate but she didn't turn round.

“It's a time-machine,” said Clara. “Why don't you go back and fix it?”

“Gosh,” said Missy, turning on her heel, “I didn't think of that. Aren't you a clever one?” She didn't sound angry or sarcastic, just tired and weary. “Some things have to happen as they happened, they can't be changed just because you don't like the way they make you feel.” With that she stepped through the gate, turned to her left, and kept walking down the street. 

Clara watched until she was gone, closed the door, and then collapsed against the wall in the hallway.

 

She boiled the kettle more for something to do than because she particularly wanted a cup of coffee. She sat down at the kitchen table with the TARDIS key in front of her, and unfolded the Doctor's note.

A few greetings had been scored out, indecisively, like he didn't know what to call her. Finally he had just settled on her name. 

_Clara,_

She could hear him perfectly in her head, slightly rough but somehow soothing, with that stupid accent that couldn't possibly be his own. She'd never managed to ask about it, and now, she supposed, it would always be a mystery. She pushed that thought aside and read on. 

_If you're reading this then I'm dead, sorry about that. First things first:_ and this he had underlined, _DO NOT TRY TO CHANGE THIS. You'll want to, or at least I ~~hope~~ assume you will, but it's probably a fixed point and you shouldn't mess about with those things._

Clara shook her head. “I'm not an idiot,” she said, quietly. She read on.

_I don't know what to say that here wouldn't just upset you more, so I'll get straight to the practicalities. I need one last favour from you, Clara. There's something very important that I need you to look after for me. It's here:_

An address in Glasgow was printed below in much neater handwriting, as though he wanted to make absolutely certain she could read it.

_You'll understand when you get there, or maybe you won't, but either way I trust that you won't let anything happen to it._

Another line had been obliterated by his own pen, and Clara held the letter up to the light in case it might reveal what he wasn't saying. It didn't. 

_Always yours,  
The Doctor_

Clara ran her fingers over the words, said them out loud, whispered them to herself until she was sure she'd never forget them. 

_PS: Make sure you take a snow-globe._

She stared at this for some time before accepting it as another of the Doctor's mysteries. Perhaps it would make sense when she got to Glasgow, and she _was_ going to Glasgow, it was the least she could do. 

She picked up her phone and opened the Trainline app. “Okay, Doctor,” she said to the air, “one last trip.”

 

 

She didn't sleep that night, and was awake and ready when morning came again. She caught the first train to Glasgow Central and sat in a window seat with her bag next to her to stop anyone sitting beside her. 

She had got used to travel being more or less instantaneous, and the green fields outside did nothing to hold her interest. She tried a few pages of a historical romance before setting it aside as too frivolous for the circumstances. She ate the sandwich she had packed that morning, not because she was hungry but as a way to kill time.

The TARDIS key hung around her neck on its chain and she played with it idly as she tried to find a safe topic to think about. By the time the train was past Carlisle she had gone over the plots of a dozen films and several books. When it pulled in at Glasgow she was the first one off the train.

 

She found the house without much trouble, despite a glitch on Google Maps, and stood on the doorstep as she ran over what she was going to say. The nameplate said “Smith” and a big ginger cat stared at her from the windowsill. Clara rang the doorbell and waited.

After some time the door swung open and and woman peered at her over a pair of thick NHS glasses. She looked to be in her seventies, if Clara was any judge of age, white hair permed within an inch of its life and her pale skin wrinkled all over. 

Clara was suddenly struck by nerves and her carefully rehearsed introductions vanished from her head in an instant. She heard herself make a few incoherent noises before she could gather her wits enough to reach for the carefully-wrapped parcel in her bag. “The Doctor said to bring a snow-globe?” she managed to say as she handed it over. 

“Clara Oswald,” said the woman on the doorstep, surprise in her voice. “It's been a long time since I saw you.”

“Have we met before?” There was something almost familiar about the woman, but Clara couldn't place her.

“We might have,” she said, rather vaguely. “Come in, I'm sure it will all make sense eventually.” She held the door open for Clara. “I'm Mrs Smith, if you don't know that already.”

Clara followed her into the house and sat down on the battered old sofa. The room wasn't small, but there didn't seem to be enough space available to hold all the clutter in the room. Things were piled up, packed together, jammed between pieces of furniture. The television was the old kind with the cathode ray tube, and the magazines piled beside looked to be several years old at least. Was Mrs Smith some sort of hoarder? Several bookcases lined the walls, and every shelf seemed to be covered in snow-globes. Well, that explained that part of the Doctor's note.

Clara picked up the one-eyed teddy-bear that sat beside her on the couch and stared at it. It looked like someone had loved it, once, probably it had sentimental value of some sort.

“That's Fergus,” said Mrs Smith, sitting down in the old armchair by the fireplace. 

Clara sat the bear back down where she had found it and tried to sit up properly. The lack of sleep was catching up with her now that she had stopped moving. She wasn't entirely sure what she was supposed to say now that she was actually in the house.

Mrs Smith broke the awkward silence for her. “The Doctor sent you,” she said. 

“He's dead,” Clara blurted out before she could stop herself. So much for breaking it to people gently.

Mrs Smith leaned towards her. “Which Doctor?”

“All of him. He's gone.” She knew it was true but she still didn't quite believe it when she heard it from her own mouth.

“But which one? It's important, Clara. Which Doctor died?”

“The Scottish one,” she said, not sure why it mattered. 

“Which Scottish one? Describe him.”

“Tall, grey hair, really good eyebrows.”

Mrs Smith sat back in her chair and nodded. She started opening her parcel, which Clara thought was awfully casual of her. Maybe she didn't know the Doctor very well, or maybe she was in shock.

Clara watched the older woman unwrap the snow-globe and hold it up to the light. Then she shook it, and snow started falling on London. 

“I don't know why the Doctor sent me here,” said Clara. “The letter said that I was too look after something for him.”

Mrs Smith chuckled and shook her head. “Don't bother, he's always been a bit over-protective.”

“Why did he tell me to come here?” asked Clara. “What did he want?”

Mrs Smith sat the snow-globe down on the coffee table and looked at Clara. “Well, dear, I expect he wants you to save him.”

“He's dead,” said Clara, now quite convinced that the old woman hadn't retained that information. “He's gone and nobody can bring him back.”

Mrs Smith stood, slowly and went over to one of the shelves of snow-globes. She picked something up from the back of the shelf and then brought it over to Clara. “You left this here, last time. I imagine it's going to be useful in some way.”

“I've never been here before,” said Clara, taking the object. It was a small glass sphere with something embedded inside it. “I've never seen this before in my life.”

“And I thought he liked the clever ones,” said Mrs Smith apparently to herself. “You take this and you find the Doctor, Clara Oswald. And when you're done, you bring bring it to this address in 1963 and you do not – you do _not_ \- ask any questions.” 

“But -”

“And don't tell anyone that you've been here,” she finished. 

Clara held up the sphere. “What is this?”

“Buggered if I know, dear,” said Mrs Smith with a strange little smile.

 

 

Clara slept on the train back to London and woke up from a dream of time-travel to find herself limbs stiff and unwilling to cooperate. She made her way through the station trying to decide what to do next. Obviously the mystery sphere was _something_ , but what, and how was it supposed to help her resurrect the Doctor or whatever she was meant to do?

As if on cue she turned her head slightly and caught sight of a woman in black holding a up a cardboard sign with “CLARA OSWALD” written on it. Clara stopped, considered her options, and walked over to her.

“I'm Clara,” she said, not entirely sure what was expected of her. 

The woman smiled. “Thank goodness for that. I've been waiting twenty-five years for this, I'd hate to have missed you.” She held her hand out and Clara shook it. “I'm Dorothy,” she went on. “The Doctor told me to meet you here.”

Clara felt her stomach twist. “Which Doctor?” she demanded. “The Scottish one?”

Dorothy seemed confused by this. “Aren't they all Scottish?” she asked. “He sent me a letter, it arrived just after I got home from...” she glanced around, “travelling.”

Clara tried to remember if the Doctor had ever mentioned a Dorothy. She didn't think he had, but that didn't prove anything either way. She knew that there had to be people who'd left him, friends who had stayed on Earth. She couldn't imagine ever wanting to leave the Doctor, but people obviously did, for whatever reason.

“Anyway,” said Dorothy, unaware of Clara's thoughts, “I'm here to give you a lift. Do you want a hand with your bag or are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” said Clara, still trying to work out what was going on. She followed Dorothy to the car park, chatting about the weather and the journey as they walked. 

“So how is he?” asked Dorothy when they were in the car. 

“He's... he's alright,” said Clara, who was becoming increasingly convinced that the Doctor was not, in the conventional sense, dead. “He's a bit grumpy at times, but I've got used to that.”

Dorothy leaned over and opened the glove compartment. She pulled out a keyring USB stick and handed it to Clara. “He said you'd need this.” She smiled. “I spent a lot of time wondering what it was before those were invented.”

“Do you know what's on it?”

“Coordinates, I think. Not for anywhere on Earth, though, I checked.” She started the car. “I'd say don't tell him I looked, but he probably just assumed that I would. Are you on some sort of mission?” she asked. 

“As far as I can tell he's sent me on a bloody wild goose chase,” said Clara. “Or maybe a scavenger hunt.”

“He's got faith in you,” said Dorothy. “If he thinks you can work it out then you should be fine.”

Clara decided not to argue. She need someone to believe in her at this point.

“Bogbrain!” yelled Dorothy suddenly as a bus pulled out in front of them. Clara started as the car stopped suddenly to avoid a collision. 

“Where are we going?” she asked belatedly.

“The TARDIS,” said Dorothy. “You've got the key, yeah?”

Clara nodded. “What am I supposed to do when we get there?”

“I dunno, he didn't say. I thought you'd know.”

“Well, I don't,” said Clara, lapsing into a troubled silence. 

Dorothy didn't push her, and after a while she put on a CD of 80s hits to fill the silence. “Don't worry,” she said when they pulled up next to the TARDIS, “I'm sure you'll work it out.”

“Thanks,” said Clara, regretting her silence as she unfastened her seatbelt. She should have talked to the woman more, maybe she'd have learned something, maybe she'd have made a friend.

Dorothy called after her as she got out of the car. “Tell him Ace says hi.”

 

Clara stood alone in the console room, staring up at the machinery. She half-expected the Doctor to show up from nowhere, acting like nothing had happened. She knew he wouldn't, though, and she knew that it was up to her to save him. 

She looked for a USB port and failed to find one. She unpacked her tablet from her bag and plugged it in there instead. A row of numbers and letters ran across the screen, but she couldn't make sense of them. She tried tapping them in on the controls, but nothing happened.

“Okay,” she said to the empty room, “telepathic circuits it is.” She rolled up her sleeves and reached, a little warily, into the organic mass on the console. She thought about the Doctor, and about the numbers on the USB stick. She concentrated, relaxed, concentrated again. And still, nothing happened. 

She stepped back from the controls and swore at the ceiling. “Do something, you useless old...” She stopped, pulled herself back together. “Sorry,” she said, more quietly. “I'm sorry.” She sat on the crash-seat and thought. She had some numbers, a big round paperweight, and her own wits. That didn't feel like a very impressive inventory. 

She wondered how the TARDIS felt about their loss. If the thing had feelings – and in some strange way it seemed like it had – then the ship must be missing the Doctor almost as much as she was. Maybe more, she admitted to herself, since the TARDIS had known him for so much longer. 

Clara closed her eyes and tried to stay positive. It wasn't very easy. She was letting the Doctor down. He had believed in her abilities and she had failed him. 

“I've been thinking about what you said.”

She looked up at the voice on the other side of the room. Missy stood in the doorway, leaning on her umbrella. 

“Sod the laws of time, let's go get the Doctor back.”

Clara stood up. She didn't trust Missy any further than she could throw her, but she was out of options otherwise. “I think he wants me to find him,” she said. She pulled the sphere from her pocket. “Do you know what this is?”

Missy's eyes widened and she rushed across the room. “Where did you get this?” she demanded.

“I'm not supposed to say.”

Missy snatched the sphere from Clara's hand. “Oh, you clever bastard,” she breathed. She looked at Clara. “Did he give you the coordinates?”

She followed Missy to the console, showed her the numbers on her tablet. “I already tried them,” she said, “I couldn't get the TARDIS to work.”

“No wonder,” said Missy, “these aren't local coordinates. We're going to have to leave normal space-time to get there. It's in one of those dreadful pocket-universes, I hate those.”

Clara stepped back and watched Missy work at the controls. She didn't understand _why_ the Doctor's worst enemy wanted to bring him back from the dead, but she wasn't exactly going to complain if she did. 

“Hold on tight,” said Missy, “I'm a bit out of practice with transdimensional travel.”

 

Clara stared through the open doors at the stars outside. They didn't look any different from normal stars to her, but Missy insisted that they were in some way 'wrong.'

“What's in the sphere?” asked Clara when Missy appeared at her side with it.

“Don't you know?” she asked, surprised.

“Would I be asking if I did?” 

Missy looked at her carefully, as though trying to decide what to tell her. “He's a very clever boy, and he always plans ahead. This is the one thing that can bring him back, in the circumstances.”

“What circumstances? What is it?” Clara was going to slap Missy if she didn't a straight answer soon. 

“Sort of a reset button. You wouldn't understand.” Missy swung her arm back and then, before Clara could stop her, she threw the sphere out into space.

 

Clara sat up. The TARDIS was in flight and there was no sign of Missy. She got to her feet and looked around a bit more. “Doctor?” she called, without much hope. No answer, and suddenly it was all too much. She didn't know where she was or what was happening, and she was sure that Missy had wrecked whatever plans the Doctor had set in motion. 

Without an audience to dissuade her, she started to cry. “I tried,” she said to the air. “I did everything you wanted me to do and it wasn't enough.”

“What are you crying about?” asked the Doctor.

Clara turned around and there he was, just as she'd last seen him. “Are you real?” she asked, before launching herself at him anyway and wrapping her arms around him. 

“No! No hugging!”

“Shut up,” said Clara, breathing in his scent. “Just shut up.”

 

 

A few hours later, Clara stepped out of the TARDIS into cold winter air. The Doctor had conjured up another sphere (or, as Clara suspected, the _same_ sphere) and had shoved an envelope into her hand before shoving her towards the doors with orders not to ask questions.

Clara knocked on Mrs Smith's door and wasn't that surprised when it was opened by a young woman holding a baby and what looked an awful lot like Fergus the bear with both eyes intact. The woman looked her up and down, sizing her up.

“I'm Clara Oswald. Can you look after something for me?” She handed over sphere and envelope with a smile and a quick “Thank you.”

She walked back to the TARDIS with a thousand questions and not much hope of getting any answers. But still, it was worth a go.

“Who's Mrs Smith?” she asked. 

The Doctor looked at her over the console. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah, it does. And what's in the sphere?”

“Clara, if I answered either of those questions I'd have to kill you. And I like you, so I don't want to kill you.”

“You're impossible,” said Clara, shaking her head.

“Isn't that why you like me?” he asked. “The impossibility and the charming persona? Possibly the dashing good looks as well?” 

“I'm serious.”

“So am I,” he said, pulling the dematerialisation lever. “And Clara?”

“Yeah?” She yawned, energy seeping away now that the crisis was over. She waited for him to thank her, or to tell that she'd done a good job.

“Can I have a cup of tea?”

She stared at him for a while, and then she laughed. “You're welcome, Doctor. You're very, very welcome.”


End file.
